


Your Position on the Bridge (As It Burns)

by J (j_writes)



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-09
Updated: 2011-07-09
Packaged: 2017-10-21 04:30:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/220901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/j_writes/pseuds/J
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>progress shall be defined by...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Your Position on the Bridge (As It Burns)

It began with the helmet.

Charles woke thinking of it, in the hospital. He lay awake for a long time, staring at the ceiling and thinking of Erik's eyes looking out at him from under it, before he realized the memory he was having wasn't his at all.

In the next room, a nurse was humming as she changed the sheets, the edges of her mind creeping idly around a thought about a helmet that she couldn't quite get a grasp on. A memory, perhaps, of something she couldn't recall in detail, covered over nearly entirely by a hard shell that glittered when Charles got too close.

That was how he discovered that Erik had been visiting him, and that he had a new telepath.  
______________

 _Hello, Azazel._ Charles got the satisfaction of feeling him flinch before he grabbed for Erik and disappeared.

It was nothing more than boredom that made him reach out and make himself known, boredom and the knowledge that weeks had passed with Erik coming to the hospital most days, never quite making it to the room where Charles was staying. The days he brought Emma, he was mostly hidden, noticeable only in fragments of thoughts that Charles could gather from the staff. But as time passed, he grew careless, bringing Azazel or the other one (Janos, his mind had supplied, along with a host of details about the life Erik was living now that Charles avoided examining too closely). Perhaps he thought Charles was in graver condition than he was, or perhaps he wanted to be seen. Either way, Charles tired too easily of waiting these days, sitting mostly alone in a room with too few colors and too much significance.

So he reached out, and Erik fled.

He half thought that might be the end of it, but he had long since learned never to underestimate Erik's guilt. Nights passed, long ones where he found himself dreaming his own dreams for the first time since coming to the hospital. His defenses had been so compromised for a while that he hadn't bothered trying to hold off the dreams of the other patients, but now when he slept, he had his thoughts to himself again. It was late when he woke to a familiar mind reaching towards his, and he half expected it to fade as he opened his eyes, but it only intensified.

"Erik," he whispered aloud to the quiet room. He reached out and froze the rest of the hospital, pleased to find he still had the strength, and waited for the moment when Erik realized what had happened.

 _Charles._ The reply was guarded, and when Charles reached toward him, he could feel the way Erik's fingers bit into the edge of his helmet, ready to slam it back onto his head at any moment.

 _You've been keeping an eye on me,_ Charles said mildly.

 _Someone's got to_.

Charles smiled. _You've come all this way, Erik. Do you not want to see me?_ He passed Erik a picture of how he looked in the mirror – tired eyes, hair hanging into his face, legs stretched out motionless under the blankets – and he could feel Erik pull away.

 _Charles, I -_ The words hung there in the silence between them, and Charles could feel the moment when Erik started lifting the helmet back up.

 _Please don't,_ he said, too quickly, too desperately, and winced. _There's no one here who's a match for me at chess,_ he continued more evenly. _Fancy a game?_

 _Not particularly_ , Erik told him, but Charles felt the helmet drop, and his legs start to move. He pulled away abruptly, not wanting to remember how it felt to walk down a hall in so much detail just yet. Instead, he put his mind to releasing the rest of the people around them, sending them back to their duties, not one of them taking notice of Erik as he made his way towards Charles' room.

"I was never much of a match for you either," Erik said from the doorway, leaning against it. "It's impossible for anyone to be, isn't it?"

Charles huffed, offended. "You must think me a man of little honor indeed," he said. "I'll have you know I've never read a mind during a chess game. Not once."

Erik raised an eyebrow. "Never?" he said incredulously.

"Well." Charles reconsidered. "Not about the chess, anyway."

Erik breathed out a quiet laugh, and it made something twist in Charles to feel the way tension flowed out of him at that small noise.

"This hasn't been easy," he said, and felt the rush of all the tension returning. He held up a hand. "For either of us," he clarified.

Erik twisted the helmet in his hands, then gestured toward the chessboard that sat by Charles' bed. "If we play, am I spared you searching through my mind? Honorable gentleman that you are, and all."

Charles made an effort to draw back, but kept his mind just lightly reaching for Erik's, finding a small comfort the ability to do so. "If you want," he replied, and reached to pull the table towards him. Erik settled down across from him, and they stared at each other over the board.

"Your move," Erik told him, and watched Charles' fingers as they reached for a pawn.  
______________

He returned home on a Wednesday, and Moira was gone by Sunday. Only Sean began to ask where she'd gone, and he was silenced by a swift kick under the table by Alex that Charles pretended he hadn't felt.

That night, he sat awake alone in his study, glass of scotch in his hand, and he didn't think about the last time he'd been here. He didn't think about much at all, except for how the surroundings were so much more pleasant than a hospital room, and it was nice to be back in his own clothes, and –

 _Black or white?_

The thought was abrupt, emerging out of the darkness, hard-edged and brittle, and Charles nearly failed at keeping a grip on his glass for a moment. He took a moment to steady himself before replying. _A sad state of affairs if this is the best use he can think to put you to, Miss Frost._

 _He says it helps him think._ The words were flat and emotionless, and any attempt Charles made to follow them back to her mind were met with a hard wall springing up in his path. He gave up, eventually, and looked down at the board beside him.

 _His choice,_ he replied.

They played slowly, a move at a time, sometimes waiting days to hear from each other. Emma's thoughts were always cold and sudden in his head, disappearing as soon as they came, a description of a move and then pulling away, and even though he knew it was Erik on the other end of each gambit, he found himself wishing he had the range to feel him directly.

When the day came that he found Hank in his office, pacing, fingers crumpling a set of familiar blueprints in excitement, he barely spared a thought before agreeing to his plan, and managed to mostly convince himself that it had nothing to do with chess.  
______________

"In the basement?" Hank's brow wrinkled. They'd been working on the plans for weeks, adapting them, enhancing them. "There's room for it down there?" Charles opened his mouth to reply, but lost his breath as he was suddenly hit by a wave of Erik's presence.

 _Care to call off your dogs, Charles?_ he asked, and Charles could practically feel the smirk in his voice as Erik sent him an image of Alex and Sean in the yard, each of them trying to do their worst to one of Hank's limbless dummies.

 _I don't give them orders_ Charles replied severely. _If you want to get past them, find a way around._

Erik's laughter was quiet in his head as he turned to Hank belatedly and said, "There is, but I'm afraid it's going to have to wait for another night to show you what I mean."

Hank shrugged and stood. "If you say so, Professor," he said. He paused at the door, grinning. "What, you got a hot date?"

"No, but I think you might," Charles said, and found himself missing the days when he could make Hank blush. He still felt a hot wave of guilt and embarrassment from him and pulled back, smiling. "Go ahead, Hank," he said, waving at the door. "Tell her…" _Tell her I miss her_ , he didn't say. "Tell her that all those years of passing notes in class still aren't enough to pull the wool over the eyes of a telepath. Especially not the one she was usually writing the notes _to_."

Hank was smiling as he left, and Charles got up to pour a pair of drinks before the door creaked open again and closed quickly behind Erik. "You're kidding me with that, right?" Erik asked, crossing the room to take the glass Charles offered him.

"You're going to have to clarify," Charles said.

"'I don't give them orders'? How noble of you."

"Noble," Charles shrugged, "or practical. Start making them do what I want them to, and they're never going to decide to do it of their own free will."

"You know they stood guard on you at the hospital?" Erik asked.

"I did know that, yes," Charles said. "I didn't think that you did, though."

"They're the reason I didn't show up until I did," he said. "You sent them home eventually, I suppose?"

Charles nodded. "Eventually." He eyed Erik. "You don't think I put them up to that, do you?"

Erik laughed. "No, I think you hated every second of it," he said. "Actually, I figured it was Moira's idea." He looked around significantly. "Is she – "

"Gone," Charles said flatly.

"Ah." Erik settled into the sofa and looked at Charles over his glass. "I'm sorry."

Charles felt a sharp laugh rise up in him unbidden. "You nearly killed her," he reminded him.

"She nearly killed _you_."

Charles sighed deeply and reached up to massage his forehead with his fingers. "Why are you here, Erik?" he asked.

Erik looked down at the coffee table in front of him and tapped a finger against the blueprints Hank had left there. "I'm here to help."

"Help."

"That's right." Erik looked up at him, open, unguarded, and Charles caught his breath at the honesty there. "How long do you think it's going to take you and Hank to reassemble Cerebro by hand?"

"Erik – "

"Charles. I want you to fill this house with mutants to teach just as much as you do. You know that's true. If I can lend a hand to help you locate them…" he held out his hands, open, nonthreatening. "I would like to."

Charles smiled. "So you can steal them out from under me in a few years," he finished.

Erik shrugged, the corner of his mouth twitching up. "You said you want them to make their own decisions," he said. "Money, mouth," he waved a hand. "That's all I'm saying." He pressed his hands to his knees and stood. "I'll let you think about it," he said. He walked over to their chessboard, considered it for a moment, then slid a piece across it. "You know how to reach me, when you come to a decision."

"Why are you so certain the decision I come to will be one you like?" Charles asked.

Erik paused and turned at the doorway, propping one arm against it as he leaned back in. "Because I know you, my friend," he said. He gave something halfway between a wave and salute, and disappeared down the hallway.  
______________

"No," was Hank's response the first time Charles broached the subject with him.

"No, no, and also _no_ ," was his reply the second.

"You make the worst decisions of any reasonably intelligent person I have ever met, do you know that?" he asked the third time, which Charles didn't think was entirely a denial.

It wasn't until the first prototype blew up that he reconsidered, lying flat on his back in the foyer of the house, Sean sitting beside him looking dazed, the edges of his pajamas frayed and charred, Alex sitting on the stairs thinking _At least it wasn't me this time._

 _Call him,_ Hank thought flatly at Charles.

It was tough work, slow work, their original plans having to be manipulated and changed at every turn, nights of frustrated bellowing from Hank, sharp mutters under Erik's breath, Charles trying to pacify them both and barely managing most of the time. He was exhausted by the time he returned to his room each night, and he felt the same from Erik and Hank as Erik left the building, Hank returned to his lab.

It was the one concession Charles had made, when Erik first arrived. "He can't stay here," Hank had said. "I won't do it, if he's living here. I'll leave the two of you to build the damn thing alone."

" _Your_ damn thing," Charles reminded him, but he'd agreed.

Some nights they went back to his room, after, the two of them, sitting in quiet together. They talked very little these days, about anything more than the work, but it was comforting to sit there and share a drink and the vague edges of thoughts with each other. Every night, when he left, Erik put the helmet back on, and Charles once asked him if he was using it against him, or against Emma.

"Both," Erik said with a shrug.

"I think," Hank said one night, taping one last set of cords together, "she's ready for a test drive."

Erik made a face. "Are you sure?" he asked, looking at Charles, who could feel the worry coming off him in waves. He smiled reassuringly, which didn't seem to help in the least.

"No, that's why I said 'I think,'" Hank told him.

"I don't think – " Erik began, but Charles wheeled himself forward and reached for the console. "Charles."

"Erik." Charles looked at him, and they challenged each other without words for a few moments, Erik shooting Charles images of himself falling to the ground on the beach, Charles responding with what he'd seen in Cerebro the last time, thousands of mutant kids with nowhere else to turn.

"All I'm saying is," Erik said aloud finally, "remember that this thing blew up."

"Once," Hank said defensively. "And only a little."

Charles sighed and settled the mess of wires onto his head. "Do I need to forcibly make the two of you shut up?" he asked. "Because I will do it."

"You said – " Erik began, and Charles cut him off.

"I _will_ do it," he repeated.

"Not necessary," Hank said brightly, and all but pushed Erik back down the ramp to the control booth.

 _I'll be here,_ Erik thought at him, and Charles let his relief and reassurance at those words travel between them, just for a moment, then closed off the connection between them entirely as the machine turned on.  
______________

"To Cerebro," Erik said, lifting a glass towards Charles. Charles toasted him back and they drank together, Erik tipping his head back against the couch. Charles could feel his exhaustion as if it were his own.

"You should rest," he said.

Erik murmured something indistinct in agreement. "It's odd," he added, "but the fiddly work with those wires is even more demanding than trying to move something huge, in some ways."

"Details," Charles said with a nod. He smiled and nudged a hand against Erik's leg. "Some of us weren't meant for subtlety."

"Yourself included," Erik replied.

"I haven't the slightest idea what you mean."

"'Oh baby'," Erik said, rolling his head against the back of the couch to give Charles a mock sexy look. "'You've got such a groovy mutation.'"

"I'll have you know that worked for me more times than you could ever possibly guess," Charles informed him.

"Or you put the whammy on them," Erik suggested.

"I _never_ ," Charles began, indignant, then paused. "Whammy? Really?" He waved the hand holding his glass at Erik. "I never did," he said seriously. Then he grinned. "I never needed to, I'm just so charming and attractive all on my own."

"Right," Erik said, chuckling, looking at him out of the corner of his eye. Charles could feel the moment when his mind switched tracks, and opened his mouth to head him off, but Erik was already sitting up, face going serious. "I didn't mean to – I mean, you still _can_ \- " Charles got a brief flash of himself, sprawled out on a bed, flushed, gasping, before Erik composed himself, pulled back, and looked a little sheepish. "Right?"

Charles let him squirm for a moment before leaning forward in his chair, locking eyes with Erik, and reaching for that part of him he hadn't felt in so long, sending him all the fantasies he'd been saving up, all the memories he had tucked away in a safe corner of his mind – slick hot skin pressing together, desperate fingers clutching into bedsheets, the taste and heat and sensations of the two of them, entangled body and mind, an endless feedback loop of pleasure.

Erik's breath went uneven, his hands pressing hard to the fabric of the couch on either side of him, hips rocking forward, his eyes locked with Charles'. Charles broke the connection between them cleanly and swiftly, leaving him there gasping, his fingers trembling as he grabbed for his drink.

"There's nothing wrong with my mind, Erik," he said mildly.

Erik didn't quite manage to form words in his reply, but the images he sent instead were even more welcome.  
______________

Charles woke, disoriented, to something tapping at his window. He lay awake for a few moments, gathering his bearings, checking that the other minds in the mansion stayed asleep, then pulled himself up and into his chair, making his way slowly towards the glass. It pushed open before he got there and Erik levered himself the rest of the way in, closing it neatly behind him with a wave of his hand.

"You could have stayed in bed, you know," Erik said. "It's not like you needed to let me in."

Charles sighed and rubbed at his eyes. "Tossing stones at my window, Erik? It's my job to _teach_ the teenagers I have here, not become one of them."

"Nails, actually," Erik corrected. "Much better accuracy." He settled onto the edge of Charles' bed and looked at him. Charles felt him suddenly become awash in concern. "Charles." He reached out, touching the side of his head.

Charles tipped his head away, frowning. "Yes, yes, have your laugh. For all that the new Cerebro is easier to work than the old, well." He reached up, touching his thinning hair regretfully. "Hank keeps trying to get me to shave it off entirely."

"Ah, the price of vanity," Erik said, grinning. He scooted over to allow Charles to pull himself back into the bed, then knelt beside him, sobering. "You look tired."

"I am." Charles let the connection between them deepen, and saw Erik slump slightly with his own exhaustion. "It's been a while since you've been here."

"I had – "

"It doesn't matter." Charles lifted a hand to cut him off, having seen enough of the work at hand already to not want to hear it from Erik's mouth. "My point was that our population has grown. Vastly."

"So I noticed on my way up," Erik replied. "Congratulations. Or, perhaps my condolences," he offered, taking in Charles' expression.

Charles smiled weakly. "It _is_ exciting," he said, "ultimately. It's just that I got used to it being so few of us here for so long – myself, Hank, Alex, Sean, the staff. This is – I feel like I'm at university again, living in a dorm. Surrounded by people who never stop thinking, and dreaming, and having _feelings_." He sighed and rubbed his eyes. "I'll adjust. In time. It's just…a process."

"It sounds to me like what you need is a break," Erik said.

"Find me an interim headmaster, and I'll take one right now," Charles said, and there was a strained silence between them as they both had the same moment of being acutely aware that it was anything but an offer.

"I meant something more like this," Erik said eventually, and reached for the helmet he'd set on the bedside table.

Charles smiled. "Think I could get one custom made for each of them?" he asked, then paused, the meaning of Erik's words sinking in. "Oh." Erik held it out, and he took it, turning it between his hands. "It's lighter than it looks."

"Here," Erik said, placing his hands over Charles', warm and steadying, and he lifted the helmet over his head. Charles closed his eyes, and let Erik settle it down. He could feel each inch of its passage, the world around him dimming until it was entirely silent, and his eyes snapped open.

" _Erik_ ," he said sharply, frantically, just to hear his own voice, and Erik's hands settled to his shoulders, holding onto him comfortingly.

"I'm still here," he said. "You're okay."

The emptiness he felt was so complete and so devastating he had to reach out, grab onto Erik's shirt, pull him close enough to feel his warmth. "Erik," he finally managed, "I can't, I don't – "

"Do you want to take it off?"

"Yes," he gasped, thinking _yes, please, Erik,_ and feeling nothing in reply but the echo of his own thought. Erik reached up and pulled the helmet from his head, smoothing his hair back down, and Charles reached up to touch the sides of Erik's face, wrapping their thoughts together more tightly and more intensely than he ever had since the night they met, feeling a rush of memories that weren't his own flood into him. He untangled them eventually and reached out to the rest of the house, checking in on each of the kids as they slept. Only then did he manage to catch his breath again.

"Charles," Erik said, "I'm so – "

Charles cut off his apology. "Is that what it's like?" he asked, his voice sounding panicky and unfamiliar. "Is that what you live like, every day?"

Erik made a helpless gesture. "I…suppose it is," he ventured.

"How can you bear being so alone?" Charles pressed their bodies together as best he could, pulling Erik closer until they were stretched out together along the bed. Erik held tight to him, his mind offering wordless comfort and reassurance.

"I've never known anything different," Erik finally said.

Charles reached up to touch his temple, and rested his head against his pillow. He let what he felt flow into Erik, and together they lay there and traveled the world in others' minds.  
______________

It had been a few months since Erik had last been by, but Charles wasn't at all surprised to feel him in the study. He paused in the doorway, reaching up to run a hand over the smooth back of his head, then pushed the door open and wheeled himself in. "Erik," he greeted him.

Erik looked up, and his face split into a grin. "My old friend!" he said, barely keeping the laugh from his voice. "My old, _old_ friend."

"You try raising fifty children on your own," Charles said, making a face.

"I think I'll pass," Erik said. "Also, I think there's no one you can blame for that but yourself."

Charles headed for the bar, and took a moment to let his mind drift over what Erik had been looking at. He paused halfway there, and turned back around. "Erik." There was a sharp note of warning in his voice that he hadn't meant to let in, and Erik's head snapped up defensively.

"I wasn't – " he began.

"Is this why you came here?" Charles asked him, wheeling forward and grabbing the plans for Cerebro from in front of him. "Months, _years_ , it's been now, and I have let you into my house, my mind, my _children's_ minds, and _this_ is what brought you to my door in the first place?"

Erik's face had shut down, hard, his mind a whirring cycle of defensiveness and anger. " _You_ are what brought me to your door, Charles. That time, and every time. I'm only just now beginning to think of the practical applications of – "

" _Practical_ ," Charles repeated. "Finding humans instead of mutants, Erik? And then what? Doing what exactly to them?"

"I wasn't thinking – "

" – that far ahead. No, I can tell that. I can also tell you that I _am_ , Erik, and I see nothing good."

"Charles." Erik opened his mind, willingly. "I meant nothing by it."

Charles looked, then pulled back. It was more or less true, for now, but the less was enough to make him feel a cold chill along his back. "I think you should leave, Erik." He felt the daggers of Erik's anger in his mind, aimless, never pointed quite at him, and he pulled back. "For now. We can talk later, when we're – " he paused, lacking words.

"You'll never stop seeing me as a monster, will you, Charles?" Erik asked.

Charles turned away. "Not a monster, Erik. Never. Only a man."

"Neither of us will ever be 'only a man,'" Erik told him, "no matter how hard you wish it." He opened the window with a wave and practically jumped out of it. Charles watched him lower himself to the ground with less gentleness than usual, and then the window slammed shut.  
______________

Erik left the helmet off for two days, and stayed close enough in range that Charles could have rummaged through every thought in his mind if he wanted. He didn't. He kept the connection between them open but tenuous, reaching out, but not quite making a move. On the second night, Erik stood on his balcony and looked towards the mansion. He lowered the helmet deliberately, slowly, as if daring Charles to stop him.

 _I'll be here, my old friend,_ Charles said instead, and then the silence between them was complete.


End file.
